The United States has designated an Egyptian Islamist military commander with links to Al-Qaeda as a global terrorist.

The State Department's declaration on October 7 blocks any property Muhammad Jamal or his group may have in U.S. jurisdiction. It also bans U.S. citizens from engaging in any transactions that would benefit him.

A statement said Jamal learned how to make bombs when he trained with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in the 1980s. He returned from Afghanistan to Egypt in the 1990s, and became a top military commander of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, then headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the head of the Al-Qaeda network.

After being released from an Egyptian prison in 2011, he formed his own network, the Muhammad Jamal Network, setting up training camps in Egypt and Libya.